LibGuides: Scholarly Communication: Identifying Credible Journals

Identifying Credible Journals

If you're unfamiliar with a journal or publisher, determining if they're credible can be challenging, but there are resources available to help you make an informed decision. If you're interested in a particular journal, check to see if it's included in one or more of the following:

Directory of Open Access Journals
The DOAJ's mission is to "increase the visibility, accessibility, reputation, usage and impact of quality, peer-reviewed, open access scholarly research journals globally, regardless of discipline, geography or language." Currently, it includes over 14,000 open access journals.
Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory
Ulrich's provides "bibliographic and publisher information on more than 300,000 periodicals," including academic and scholarly journals.

To learn more about a particular publisher, check to see if they're a member of the following organizations:

Committee on Publication Ethics
COPE "provides leadership in thinking on publication ethics." Members include editors and publishers of peer-reviewed academic journals, as well as associated organizations. COPE guidelines and modules cover topics like selective reporting, reviewer misconduct, plagiarism, corrections and retractions, and conflict of interest.
Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association
OASPA's mission is to develop and disseminate "publishing solutions that advance open access, preserve the integrity of scholarship, and promote best practice." Their membership includes professional publishers, scholar publishers, and organizations that provide publishing support.

Exclusion from the above resources doesn't automatically mean that a journal and publisher aren't credible. In cases like this, learning more about publishing best practices can help. The following resources are designed to assist you in making the determination yourself:

Think. Check. Submit.
Created and supported by a "coalition from across scholarly communications," Think. Check. Submit. provides tools and resources geared toward researchers looking for trusted venues in which to publish their work. The Books and chapters and Journals pages provide a series of questions for researchers to consider when assessing publisher credibility.
Journal Evaluation Tool
Created by Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School, the Journal Evaluation Tool provides a rubric with 16 publishing-related criteria to help guide you through the evaluation of a journal.